2010 Geddes W. Simpson Distinguished Lecturer Announced

The University of Maine Geddes W. Simpson Lecture Committee has selected Michelle Murphy, associate professor of history and the Institute of Women Studies and Gender Studies at the University of Toronto, to present that annual lecture.

The family of Geddes Wilson Simpson established the Geddes W. Simpson Lecture Series Fund at the University of Maine Foundation in 2001. The goal is to bring to UMaine speakers of prominence who have significant insight into the area where science and history intersect.

The title of Murphy's lecture is "Avertable Life, Investable Futures: A Cold War Story of Sex and Economy." It is scheduled for Maine Day, April 28, 2010 at 3 p.m. in Buchanan Alumni House's McIntire Room.

Murphy's work examines the history of technoscience, sex, gender, race, environmental politics and capitalism in the United States.

Her book, "Sick Building Syndrome and the Politics of Uncertainty: Environmental Politics, Technoscience and Women Workers" (Duke University Press, 2006) won the 2008 Ludwick Fleck Prize from the Society for Social Studies of Science. She is also the author of "Seizing the Means of Reproduction: Feminism, Technoscience, and the Biopolitics of Cold War America" (Duke University Press, forthcoming) and co-editor of "Landscapes of Exposure: Knowledge and Illness in Modern Modern Environments" (Osiris, 2004).

Her current research project, "The Economization of Life," explores the interlinked histories of efforts to govern and alter national economies and human biological futures. She is also a 2009-2010 Jackman Humanities Institute Research Fellow.

Dr. Geddes W. Simpson was a well-respected University of Maine faculty member for 55 years, chair of the Entomology Department and editor at the Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station. He retired from UMaine in 1974.

The public is invited to the lecture.

Pictured: Dr. Geddes W. Simpson